The Truth about Sacagawea by Kenneth Thomasma (1997) and Sacagawea of the Lewis and Clark Expedition by Ella E. Clark and Margot Edmonds (1979)
Ken Thomasma, who has written many interesting children's books about Indians and about Sacagawea, aims to clarify her story with his book, The Truth about Sacagawea. He uses the spelling of her name that Shoshoni prefer and paraphrases journal entries about her, putting them in italics and adding easy-to-read, brief introductions to each paraphrase.
This slim volume, ably illustrated by A. Vincen Talbot, helps readers to understand Sacagawea's real role. She was allowed to accompany Charbonneau, who was hired as a translator, because Hidatsa Indians told the captains that they would need to get horses from the Shoshoni in order to cross the mountains. Sacagawea served as translator with the Shoshoni , and she also proved her worth by gathering edible greens to eat.
Having a woman along quelled the fears of Indians they met in regard to the purpose of the expedition, for a woman never accompanied a war party. She recognized the Beaver Head as near her homeland, and she served as a "pilot" to Clark through the Bozeman Pass on the return journey, although she never accompanied an advance party reconnaissance. Although she was only sixteen at the time they left the Mandan village, Sacagawea was a practical person, retrieving the valuable journals from a sinking canoe. Despite her near death from a pelvic inflammation, she proved a hardy traveler with a Baby on her back during this epic journey.
Clark and Edmonds's book (copyright 1979 by the Regents of the University of California) recounts the story of Sacagawea's participation in the expedition in Part 1 (Chapters 2-9). "The Expedition." The authors use the spelling that the captains sounded out and wrote in the journals. (In the Hidatsa language there is no "j" and "g" is always pronounced hard. Sacagawea is an Hidatsa word). Clark and Edmonds ably paraphrase journal accounts, emphasizing the role that the young Shoshoni woman played in the overland experience. In Part II., "Sacagawea in Historical Perspective," the author give credence to Dr. Grace Hebard's research in the 1930, and the writings of Eva Emory Dye at the beginning of the 20th century. Dye was searching for the perfect American heroine to gain support for women's suffrage. Sacagawea, unknown during "a century of neglect," (p 87) looked like the best candidate. Dye resurrected her and Hebard expanded her life seventy-five years. Dr. Charles Eastman, a Sioux medical doctor, bolstered their version of history. During the 1970s, Irving Anderson uncovered and re-emphasized court records assigning the guardianship of Sacagawea's children, Clark's notations about the fate of expedition members, accounts that Clark paid for the education of Sacagawea's children in St. Louis, and journal entries by Henry Brackenridge and John Luttig regarding her grave illness in 1811 and her death in 1812. Most scholars now side with Anderson's conclusion that Hebard had been led astray by Shoshoni story-tellers at the reservation at Wind River, Wyoming, and that Dye had magnified Sacagawea's influence by calling her the "guide" of the expedition. However, many people still embrace Hebard's alternative story that Sacagawea lived 100 years and is buried at Wind River. Clark and Edmonds explain how the story about Sacagawea at Wind River took root.
Cover reproduction thanks to the University of California Press.
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Biographical information about Ella E. Clark and Ken Thomasma
Ken Thomasma wrote "The Amazing Indian Children" series of seven books. Three of them won the Wyoming Children's Book Award. Naya Nuki, the story of Sacagawea's friend who was also captured by the Hidatsa and escaped, is the best known of the series. The books have been translated into Danish, Dutch, Norwegian and Eskimo dialects for Greenland. Thomasma, his wife, children and grandchildren live on the southern border of Grand Teton National Park in Jackson Hole, Wyoming. He has been a teacher and school principal. His current life of story-telling draws on research and interviews with tribal people.
Illustrator Agnes Vincen Talbot, a native of Boise, Idaho, loves the outdoors and stories of the West. She studied art in Connecticut, returning to live in Boise. Her statue of Sacagawea stands in front of the Idaho State Historical Museum in Boise, and a copy of it stands in Sacagawea's homeland near Tendoy, Idaho.
Ella E. Clark was born in Tennessee in 1896, attended high school in Illinois and became a teacher. She received her B. A. from Northwestern University in 1927, and afterward taught English at Washington State University until her retirement in 1961. (She served as a fire lookout for the U.S. Forest Service in the Cascades several summers). Her published books include Indian Legends of the Pacific Northwest (1953), Indian Legends of Canada (1960), and Indian Legends from the Northern Rockies (1966). She donated her papers to the Washington State University Library prior to her death in 1998 at the age of 102. Margot Edwards assisted her in writing Sacagawea of the Lewis & Clark Expedition (1979).
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Discussion questions for The Truth about Sacagawea and Sacagawea of the Lewis and Clark Expedition
- Do you think Sacagawea is "one of the six most important American women" as James Truslow Adams asserted in 1941 (p. 84, Clark and Edmonds)? Why has she been memorialized with more statues and paintings (and even a coin) than other American women? Does scant information attract more interpretation of her? Which physical image of her do you prefer?
- William Clark enticed the Charbonneaus to come to St Louis. In 1809 they traveled there, accepted land from Clark, baptized their son, Jean Baptiste, in December, and sold their land to return to the Mandans. Henry Brackenridge took the same boat north, noting in his journal that Sacagawea was ill. John Luttig, clerk at Fort Manuel where Sacagawea and Charbonneau lived, wrote on December 20, 1812, "this Evening the wife of Charbonneau a Snake Squaw, died of a putrid fever she was a good and the best Women in the fort, aged abt 25 years she left a fine infant girl."
Believing Charbonneau dead from a massacre that killed many of Manuel Lisa's men, Luttig took Sacajawea's daughter, Lizette, to St. Louis, signing as her guardian. When Clark returned, he crossed our Luttig's name and put his own. Clark's journal later reflected these events, "Se Car Ja we au Dead."
The historical research upon which Dr. Grace Hebard and Dr. Charles Eastman constructed another Sacajawea called "Basil's Mother" who lived at the Wind River Shoshoni reservation refutes the above primary references. Hebard's and Eastman's account are based on interviews a century later recounting oral tradition.
Do you believe the written journal accounts of Brackenridge, Luttig and Clark, or the tradition that Clark and Edmonds tell about Sacagawea's later life?
- Why is Sacagawea a likely candidate for revisional history? How has her image changed through time?
- Why do you think Sacagawea did not stay with her people, the Lemhi Shoshoni?
- Describe Sacagawea's relationship to Toussaint Charbonneau.
- Trace the remarkable life of her son, Jean Baptiste.
- What do you think about historians calling her " Sacagawea," North Dakotans calling her "Sakakawea" and Idahoans calling her "Sacajawea"? (The Lemhi Shoshoni prefer "Sacajawea" while The Bureau of American Ethnology established her name in 1910 as "Sacagawea," spelling used by the Encyclopedia Americana, World Book Encyclopedia, the U.S. Geographic Name Board, the U.S. National Park Services and history scholars.)
- What meaning does her life have for young women today?
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